Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1702-1714
Dissention within and intrigue from without further hastened the fall
of the Administration. Godolphin, a moderate, had, after the General
Election of 1708, found himself allied with the "Junto" of five
powerful Whig Lords--Wharton, Sommers, Halifax, Orford, and
Sunderland--but it was, at best, an uneasy alliance. Throughout 1709
and into the early months of 1710, personal jealousies drove the
Godolphin-Marlborough interest farther and farther away from the Junto.
Robert Harley and the Dukes of Somerset and Shrewsbury, in their
determination to overthrow the Administration, exploited every chance
to widen the rifts between Anne and her Ministers and between the two
ministerial factions. Abigail Hill Masham, who soon became an agent of
Harley, replaced the Duchess of Marlborough as Anne's confidante.
When the Ministry fell, it fell like a house of cards. On 14 April 1710
Shrewsbury was made Lord Chamberlain over the unavailing protests of
Godolphin. Two months later, at the instigation of Somerset, the Queen
replaced Sunderland with the Tory Lord Dartmouth as Secretary of State.
Finally, on 8 August, Godolphin was ordered to break the White Staff of
his office and Harley was appointed Treasurer. One by one the remaining
Junto Ministers were replaced by Tories. By September the work was
complete. The Duke of Marlborough alone remained, in command of the
army, but this was only to be until the new Ministry could negotiate a
peace and his services would no longer be required.
It had been Harley's intention to govern by means of a "moderate"
Administration, a "Queen's Ministery above party," but he had not
reckoned on the outcome of the General Election called in October. "On
the day Godolphin fell, Harley expounded his 'moderate' programme in a
letter to the Duke of Newcastle: 'The Queen is assured you will approve
her proceedings, which are directed to the sole aim of making an
honourable and safe peace, securing her allies, reserving the liberty
and property of the subject, and the indulgence to Dissenters in
particular, and to perpetuate this by really securing the succession of
the House of Hanover.'"[1]
Alone, either the antagonism to the war or the intensity of feeling for
the High-Church cause which the Sacheverell affair engendered, would
have been sufficient to sweep the Whigs from power. Together, and
combined as they were with the prestige of the Queen's public support
of Harley and the newly appointed Tory Ministers, these issues were
irresistible. Harley found himself with an "immoderate" House of
Commons. The Tories held 320 seats, the Whigs only 150, and there were
40 seats whose votes were "doubtful."[2] Many of the new
Parliamentarians were High-Church zealots, and most were anxious to
turn the nation away from the policies of the Whig Administration of
Godolphin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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